....and political expert href="http://themoderatevoice.typepad.com/blog/2004/06/_sabatos_crysta.html">Larry Sabato thinks it could be Ronald Reagan's 2004 campaign (a landslide not a squeeker).

Ace Pryhill doesn't think much of Christian separatists.

Not sure there's much consistent with the Christianity I know in their viewpoint.

Mind you, the beauty of the American system is that people with like values are free to congregate and live together. Still, sealing yourself away from others isn't the basic message of the Gospel, is it?

First there was the informative website. And now there's the movie.

"Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz is publishing a blog that's maintained by a church. You can read some of his writings here.

Two things: 1)How sad to see from his prison mug shot that David has greatly aged. (Prison and dropping bars of soap will do that to you, you know). 2)Now that he has a blog, is he running Blogads?

Rush Limbaugh is getting a divorce. Hillary was behind this somehow....

In England, a politically wounded Tony Blair:

LONDON (Reuters) - Britons, angered over Iraq, have handed Prime Minister Tony Blair a drubbing in local government elections but the prime minister won a little respite on Friday as his Labor Party retained the London mayoralty.

"Iraq has been a shadow over our support," Blair told reporters in Washington, after attending Ronald Reagan's funeral. He urged his jittery followers to hold firm.

There was no good news for Blair in the local polls.

With results in from nearly all the 166 contested councils across England and Wales, Labor had lost a net 461 seats and control of eight councils, including its northern strongholds of Newcastle and Leeds.

The BBC projected Labor's national vote at 26 percent, way behind the Conservatives on 38 percent.

The Liberal Democrats, strong opponents of the Iraq war, had 29 percent, pushing Labor into an unprecedented third place.

"I think it's a question of holding our nerve and seeing it through and realizing, yes, Iraq has been an immensely difficult decision," Blair said.

These election results don't comprise a judgement on whether the war was justified, needed or, in the end, successful in meeting long range goals. These controversies continue -- and the answers to these questions will come later on.

The truly bad news: unlike in the United States where there is not a monster gap between the two leading presidential candidates on the war, the divide in Great Britain (as in Spain) was large. What message does this send to the terrorists about the willingness of democracies to hang in there through a difficult situation?

Jimmy Breslin, in one of his not-nice moods, on Ronald Reagan.

The Moderate Voice watches the aftermath of Reagan's death with fascination -- how you have some people on the right who absolutely insist the man was a saint and some people on the left who absolutely insist the man was a horrible hypocrite. The priority is to score points on YOUR agenda by hyping your case ad nauseum (and we do mean ad nausem because some of the purple prose on both sides makes us want to hurl).

Here's an idea: Reagan was a man. Who did his best. According to his beliefs. And he left office not detested because he had his agenda but did not seem intent on obliterating his opponents while he followed it. He had good points and bad points, but his good points -- when you look at some past (and present) politicos -- outweighed his bad points.

Breslin and Andy Rooney should retire and share a room. A padded room.

It's often sad to hear what happened later on to child actors as they grew into adulthoold -- from many of the Little Rascals, to the procession of TV era kids who had drug, crime problems or took their own lives.

Here's one who navigated fairly well through the iceburgs of fame, fortune and family dysfunction. You will not agree with everything he says here but he seems to have come out with most of his values and common sense intact. His skull is not Home Alone...

(Note: Before The Moderate Voice gets emails and comments in the comment boxes accusing him of being a fervant conservative who is ceaselessly pushing Reagan and Reaganism, make sure to read an item posted today on Dean's World here. Paying respects to a President who served the country is important -- whether it's for Reagan, or one day Gerald Ford or one day Bill Clinton. They deserve our respect and thanks.)

The big ceremony was held today in Washington. Rather than pontificate on it, here are some Reagan links that will be updated throughout the day:

--Text of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's euology.
--President George W. Bush and Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tell mourners about their view of Reagan.
--Text of Mulroney's tribute.
--Text of President Bush's tribute.
--Former President and former Vice President George Bush remembers Reagan.
--Good piece in Australian newspaper on the state funeral.

...and ages. And this one deserves our prayers today.

UPDATE: Various reports say it isn't looking good for this hero.

Iron Blogger Libertarian rebuts me.

My response is here.

By the way, they're looking for challengers. Why don't one of you folks take a chance and challenge one of the Iron Bloggers yourself?

A debate about that is raging in legal circles, political circles...and on blogs. As usual, one of the most precise comments comes from Oxblog, where David Adesnik writes:

I recognize that there are certain extreme situations in which torture is justified. If a terrorist knows that a chemical warhead is about to explode in downtown Baghdad, then the gloves come off.

But in general, I think is premature to say either that torture is an efficient method of interrogation or that it is the only method. Moreover, the negative repercussions of torture in terms of both domestic and foreign opinion are so great that we can only afford to use it as a method of last resort.

That's about as definitive a statement, and concisely put, as you'll see anywhere.

Citizens Smash, formerly known as Lt. Smash (who blogged from the battlefield) attended a war rally in Los Angeles. A rally complete with lots of speeches and even a celebrity (Danny Glover). And he brought his camera and tape recorder along.

PS: It was an anti-war rally -- and CS is not anti-war. A great read (and why Citizen Smash stylistically breaks a lot of the unwritten format in what we usually expect to see when we go to a blog). It doesn't matter where you stand politically, Smash is always fun (and he does not take predictable positions -- often breaking with the conservative pack).

He needs to be retired. Now. Yesterday.

How many men who died left an ex-wife saying things like this?

I love this personal reminiscense of Ronald Reagan of Jerry Pournelle's.

This time on ice cream. SHHHHHHHHHH!

Has Arizona Senator John McCain seriously considered in effect bolting his party and running as Veep with his friend Senator John Kerry? Or has he simply dismissed formal overtures from the Kerry camp and thinly-disguised pinings of The Modern Day JFK?

According to the Washington Post, the answers are YES and NO. You can read about it all in detail here, but basically the one sticking point for McCain is that by running with Kerry he might a)diminish his credibility, b)find he has less influence as Veep than staying in Congress. David Ignatius writes:

The bitter political divide in America worries McCain, especially when the nation is at war. He knows that for many Americans, he has become a symbol of a bipartisanship that could overcome these divisions -- and bring Red and Blue America closer together. That call to duty is powerful for McCain. He'll be 68 later this summer, and he knows that his time to shape American public life is now.

The Kerry camp has made overtures, and McCain has taken them seriously. He has tried to imagine the details of how such a partnership would work in practice. But the more McCain thinks about such a unity ticket, the more difficulties he sees.

McCain's problem is that while he genuinely likes Kerry as a friend, he disagrees with him on many important issues. Take Kerry's recent statement that he favors bilateral negotiations with North Korea. McCain has never favored that approach and thinks it would be a potentially dangerous mistake. How, he wonders, would the two reconcile such a sharp disagreement on one of the most important foreign policy issues facing the country?

Or take the sensitive issue of gays in the military. Kerry has indicated he wants a reexamination of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy favored by the military. McCain disagrees. How would they resolve that one?

Indeed, McCain's appeal has been that although he is a mixed bag of political beliefs -- much like California's highly-popular Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- he won't compromise on certain things. And he is brutally blunt. More from the Post:

Advocates of the national-unity approach, like me, argue that the fact that Kerry and McCain disagree is the whole point of their running together. They would each have to give ground on issues that matter to them, for the sake of the larger issue of the country's welfare. And they would have to work out a governing formula that allowed McCain to remain a Republican and be faithful to his values while working alongside Kerry.

That logic moves McCain, but it doesn't convince him. He wonders what would happen when the country faced its first serious foreign policy crisis. Let's assume that McCain was given special responsibility for defense and national security issues as vice president. That might allow McCain to insist on his preferred policy for North Korea. But he worries that if Kerry agreed to such a power-sharing formula, he would be fundamentally weakening the office of the presidency.

McCain knows that people respect him because he says what he thinks. And since he would continue to speak out if he were vice president, he fears a Kerry White House would inevitably -- necessarily -- put him on ice. And perhaps most important, by running with a Democrat, he would lose the chance to do what he most wants, which is to help broaden and revitalize the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

So the Arizona Republican probably means it when he says he won't run as Kerry's vice president. He rejects the idea not in principle but in practice. And he means it, too, when he says he plans to support George W. Bush and campaign for his reelection.

So, with time running out, where does this leave the Kerry folks?

The Kerry campaign thus has two options if it truly favors a national-unity strategy. It can think through the problems that McCain is worrying about and try to woo him anew with a structure that could bridge differing viewpoints without destroying the coherence of a Kerry White House. Or, it can look for another moderate Republican such as Sen. Chuck Hagel or Sen. Richard Lugar, who, like McCain, are symbols of independence and bipartisanship.

We'd also argue that with all the acclaim of Ronald Reagan he might also consider the one Democrat who had the same likeability figure, and we don't mean Howard My-Mouth-Is-My-Shepard Dean: John Edwards. But perhaps that's a pipe dream (and Kerry will thrust upon the national stage a hack for Veep like Richard Gephardt):

What makes McCain so appealing as a unity candidate came through in a speech he gave last month on fiscal discipline. "I am a proud Republican," he said. "I revere Ronald Reagan and his party of limited government. Sadly, that party is no longer. The current version of the Republican Party is engaged in an outrageous spending binge, and they're being steadied and encouraged by the Democrats."

Indeed, like him or not, McCain speaks his mind and doesn't seem to be looking at the polls or worrying about bigwigs' noses being out of joint (which is why he is not beloved in the Senate). That was one of the appealing things about Reagan, who did compromise and take a half-a-loaf if he had to: he stood steadfast for his beliefs. But in 2004 there's a sense that polls Are King in both camps, protestations to the contrary. So, who will Kerry pick? And will Bush stick with Cheney (latest rumors the past few weeks had Tom Ridge being vetted just in case, and Rudy Giuliani being perceived as a great way to energize the ticket.)??

UPDATE: The New York Times has a piece saying McCain has repeatedly refused Kerry's hints that he'd like him to run with him.

"Hints" is the word since it has not been posed as a direct question -- and the two reportedly play a kind of verbal game. But McCain has remained firm in his insistance that he is not interested, the Times reports.

Your dog is a LOT SMARTER than you think. The Moderate Voice can attest to that...and gives you the scoop on cats, too (see what you learn when you read Dean's World?)

Not by a longshot. And Seattle conservative blogger Greg Piper steps back, looks at it and tells you precisely why.

Or is it a risk -- a double edged sword? There are dangers....

It's me, Joe Gandelman, aka The Moderate Voice, back to revolt...I mean recharge you....with some posts as Guest Blogger today and Saturday. We love visting Dean's World so thanks in advance!

I have been remiss in not making note of the death of one of America's true national treaures. Ray Charles has passed away.

I particularly liked Juliette's tribute. I'll add one thought though:

People like Ray Charles aren't supposed to die. That's just plain wrong.

I would like to make a Public Service Announcement.

Attention black people: You all can carry off all sorts of hairstyles, including the fade or even outright bald, in a way that looks great and makes other people envious. But seriously, the giant 'fro thing? It didn't look good in the '70s, and it still doesn't look good now.

Remember: Just because you can doesn't mean you should do it.

If it's any consolation, I'll never perm my hair to make it curly again (and yes, I really used to do that back in the '80s).

I don't even watch organized team sports for the most part, but I'm watching the finals for the NBA championship and, as I write this, I'm stunned to note that Detroit is up 20 points on L.A. in the 4th quarter.

No one expected them to put up such a tough fight.

There are certain images that embed themselves forever. I suddenly realized today that one of those images emblazoned forever upon my soul is that moment when Nancy put her cheek on his flag-draped coffin.

By the way, don't miss John Cole's snarky but on-target photo-essay. I must admit I laughed my ass off.

Chaos Overlord points out that proving the Riemann Hypothesis may have profound security implications. Which Hal also hinted at, as I recall.

Shoot. Now that's a cool blog design.

By the way, be sure to hit the "Refresh" button a few times after visiting. Notice how the marquee changes every time!

A new study is suggesting that fructose makes appetite hormones go haywire.

When reading this news, please contemplate the words "high fructose corn syrup," and start looking at all your food labels.

Can anyone help me find the actual study rather than this popular account?

[brrrrrEAP! brrrEAP!] "Moonbats off the port and starboard bows, Captain!"

"Red Alert! Report, Mr. LaForge!"

"Hard to starboard, Captain, sensors detect a once thoughtful liberal has turned into a ranting Michael Moore apologist who thinks Michael Reagan conspired to keep Democrats away from his father's funeral. Readings indicate that a belief in Masonic involvement may be concealed under his cloaking device."

"It's always sad when the Borg Moonbat Collective assimilates someone who used to be one of the good ones. But we've all seen this coming for a while, so just raise deflector shields and stay calm. What about the one off the port bow?"

"This one looks to be a much more harmless, garden variety moonbat, Captain. He thinks he's Spider-Man and has fantasies that you're threatening his job."

"Ah. That one we'll treat as noise. Now that we've assessed the threat, I see that I may have overreacted. Go to Yellow Alert, keep deflector screens up, but otherwise simply resume course at Warp Factor Four."

"Aye, Captain."

By the way, I don't know how many of you read my Iron Blogger first rebuttal, but I'd like to make a joke about it that I couldn't find a way to fit into my actual Iron Blogger piece.

First off, let me note that the tale of How Dean Picked Up A Crack Whore On His Way To Work is completely true. Word for word. I swear on my grandmother's grave.

But now here's the thing: a sad truth is that I was in almost as much danger in that situation from the cops as I was from the thugs who ran out to sell her the crack. If by some chance I'd been in that situation at exactly the wrong moment, I might very well have been arrested. Because our laws about these vices are (in my view) completely insane. Honestly, I could have been arrested, and charged, with more than one crime. Go read it again. Word for word it's true, and as it turns out I committed more than one misdemeanor and at least one felony. Which should go a long way to telling you why our laws on such matters no longer make any sense.

But anyway:

Can you imagine if I had actually been arrested? My car would have been impounded and sold at auction, and I, in the Inkster Michigan police department lockup, would have had to make the following phone call at 8:00 a.m. to my beloved wife:

"Honey? Sweetie? Darling? Uh, I've been arrested and our car's been impounded so they can sell it for auction. I need you to come pick me up and bail me out. What was I arrested for? Well, uh, I picked up a whore and took her on a crack run in Little Saigon there in Inkster. But wait, I talked to her pimp and he said he's got a shyster lawyer who thinks we can beat this rap! Honey? Honey...?"

(Once again, read this if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

When I read this headline, all I could think was that Dean's World readers all have dirty minds.

(Via God in the Machine.)

Say Uncle: 20 Things Online Debate Has Taught Me.

We should all learn them.

By the way, Triticale has the last requirement, in case you need it. Which I think proves that he's always right about everything.

Tonecluster knows what it means to be a liberal.

I can only give him one consolation: it has ever been thus, my friend. It just seems worse at the moment because of what we're going through as a nation.

Oh, and by the way, I generally use the terms "moonbat" or "reactionary" to describe the fake liberals. In case you find that helpful.

Be sure not to miss Joe Katzman's roundup on widespread military blindness, and the problems it causes us at times as a nation at war.

Be sure to check out John Cole's excellent article on the American military funeral traditions, which is particularly timely considering the ongoing funeral of President Reagan.

I am learning a lesson again that I have been too slow to learn.

There is a subset of assholes who hang out here on Dean's World whose sole mission in life appears to be to say sarcastic, rude, snotty things to me. They don't like me or what I stand for or what I believe, and so any opportunity they have to hurt my feelings or make me look bad is something they'll do at the drop of a hat.

And I need to remember that if I link someone, these assholes will follow me over there and leave nasty comments on that person's weblog.

I'm now carefully re-evaluating what and who I link to from now on. Apparently, the offhand, "ha, this is funny" or "I liked that, let's help promote this person" mentality isn't quite appropriate anymore.

Arthur Chrenkoff has still more good news about Iraq. Be sure not to miss it.

As a weblogger, I have long considered it my patriotic duty to show you as much of the positive news on the war on terror that I can, because the mainstream press has so manifestly been failing in its duty to do the same. Arthur, not even an American by birth, has outdone me. I salute him.

A respected mathematican claims to have a proof for the Riemann Hypothesis, the well-known hypothesis that describes the nature of prime numbers.

Oddly enough, he's bypassing the normal peer reivew process and publishing straight to the internet, but other mathematicians, including the head of the department at Purdue, say he should be taken seriously.

Although it's not clear what the usefulness of this proof would be, I must say I'm as much or more interested in the fact that he's going straight to the internet. I've long felt that we need to see more research taken out of the musty dead-tree journals and available directly on the internet, using blog-style technology for the peer review process. Mind you, it'd put some journals out of business, but hey, buggy whip manufacturers don't make much of a living anymore either.

The Los Angeles times reports that previous positive estimates of worldwide terrorism going down may have been wrong, and Democrats are attacking the administration for that.

Ara and Hal wanted me to be sure to let you know, and cast some aspersions at my character (and the President's) that you might find amusing.

Professor Reynolds has good column on longevity research, and how some people seem to be resistant to the idea politically. Although I've had some arguments with some friends about this recently. :-)

Yes, just possibly, off the coast of Spain. This isn't a new theory, although the new evidence is interesting.

(Via Joe.)

Ya know, seriously, this is the best boob rant ever.

Michele, Rosemary, Joanie, Beth, you can all just bow down your heads now.

You know Dean's World is going places. How can you tell? Well, dig this recent line from a P.J. O'Rourke piece in The Atlantic:

Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.

Compare this with the following, which yours truly wrote last August:

The gay rights movement has, for the most part, become a conservative movement.

Don't believe it? Think back over the last ten years, and ask yourself what the primary issues that gays have agitated for have been. I'll bet your list looks something like this:

* They want to hold steady jobs.
* They want to go to church and join the clergy.
* They want to live in nice, respectable communities without being kicked out.
* They want to join the military and fight for their country.
* They want to join the boy scouts--the freaking Boy Scouts!

And, oh yes,

* They want to settle down, have kids, and raise families.

...In short, these people don't want to destroy Republicans. They want to be Republicans.

P.J. O'Rourke! Stealing my ideas, cribbing my notes. Cheating bastard. Someone get Atlantic Monthly on the phone, I want my check!

(Link via Tim Blair.)

Interestingly, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (who is generally viewed as Satan Himself by the Barking Moonbat crowd) has a piece in today's Wall Street Journal outlining the Road Map for Iraqi Sovereignty. Not surprisingly, it's fairly consistent with the plans the administration was discussing a year ago May as well as the plans announced by the administration before the invasion even began February.

You know, those plans we supposedly didn't have going in? Right, those.

Anyway, what I found most interesting of all is the fact that the undersecretary found mention of a specific weblogger worth his while. Which only goes to show, once again, that the blogosphere is already exerting a large and growing influence on journalism and politics around the world.

Of course, we already knew that many high officials in government are weblog readers. It's just nice to see it being confirmed again. For me, anyway.

Citizen journalism is here to stay, folks.

Well, now isn't this interesting: A New England Republican blogger notes that a recent interview with President Bush was substantially redacted for broadcasting, and the parts edited out seem to have been pretty substantial to helping the President make his case to viewers.

Fortunately, one enterprising blogger compared the video version with the transcript available ont he web site, and was able to highlight the differences, along with links where you can confirm (at least for now) the un-redacted original interview.

Interesting. Some of those cuts seem to have included quite important statements.

My first Iron Blog followup argument is available.

And the fireworks begin.

Just popping in to drop off the keys....
Don't worry about changing the locks, I'll only drop by as invited...
This was such a great honor and I had a wonderful time. You guys are the best. Maybe you can come by my place sometime. I seem to have many more lurkers than commenters and you'd all be a welcome addition. I tend to be a bit sassier over there and tried to respect my host here.
Thanks so much. Dean's World is a nice place to be in!

This isn’t a statement on gay marriage per se, this for me is of rights, licenses, and privileges.
I have my own peeve with Massachusetts and the whole gay marriage subject.
I have a right granted by the Constitution to carry a firearm. But not in Massachusetts. Marriage and driving are not rights. That’s why you get a license for the privilege. But in Massachusetts you have to get a permit to purchase a gun, and a license to carry one that can be denied you for any reason regardless of a clear background check. As I understand it, there is no concealed carry permitted whatsoever.
In the State of Washington where I currently reside, I have a right to carry and have my concealed weapon permit. It is not transferable to another state and by the laws of Massachusetts it would be illegal for me to do so there.
See, the whole thing is much more of an issue than many think.
At least to this straight gun toting ex Commonwealth resident.

Why

people

don't

take

Libertarian

candidates

seriously.

Heh. Seems familiar somehow.

Heh.

I can't possibly imagine the scenario.

Others will vote their consciences, of course, but John Kerry has not disavowed his support for the mass-murdering Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Which tells me too much about where his support for human rights will be over the next few years if elected.

Mind you, only an idiot would call him a "traitor" for taking such a position. I would merely call him a man whose priorities were and are still, quite obviously, out of whack.

Mind you, I'd retract that if he finally disavowed the brutal mass-murdering, torturing tyrant Ortega and acknowledged that the Contra victory brought democracy, free press, free speech, and peace.

Since that is exactly what happened in Nicaragua.

And what is it that happened again? Oh yes, the Contras finally won in Nicaragua, and got what they always said they wanted: free speech, free press, and free elections. When they got that, the people of Nicaragua threw out the Ortega--who was, by the way, good friends with the North Korean, Cuban, and Soviet governments.

And the people of Nicaragua elected the wife of a man who Daniel Ortega had murdered, in a bit of perfect cosmic justice.

Senator Kerry, you and I were on the wrong side of that issue. The only difference I see is, I was able to admit I was wrong, whereas you still haven't. To your great shame.

* Update * J. Scott Bernard has corrected me. While Ortega was of course a mass-murderer whose death squads took out many political opponents, he did not murder Chamorro. That was done by Somoza.

Hmm. I'm tempted to be snarky but I'll just report it as is: The U.N. security council is being predicted to vote 15-0 to endorse the new Iraqi government and give the U.S. a mandate to stay through the end of 2005 to help them keep things stable.

Not that I consider a council dominated by tyrants, thugs, and theocrats (and no, that's not snarkage, that's just a fact) to have all that much moral legitimacy, but I suppose it's politically positive for the U.S.

One of the most profound quotes I ever read in my life was from Nancy Reagan. It was from a totally unrelated-to-politics-essay spread on Alzheimer's. I believe Peggy Noonan quoted it. I so wish I had the source but alas, I wasn't blogging then and it wasn't important at the time to keep a link. But it touched me so that I've never forgotten.

Stories of people who have been touched by this horrible disease. I cried through the whole thing.

Nancy's offering was how she and Ronnie had such an amazing life with so many great experiences. She often caught herself saying to him "Remember when....?"

And realizing that he didn't. He couldn't. And how she shared so much with him and couldn't reminisce. It broke my heart. I remember sending it along to a bunch of people because it needed to be regarded.

I lost a lot of respect for someone who replied "Don't send me any of that crap ever again".

Just because he didn't like Reagan. I was stunned...how could something like that be offensive in any way and not touch you deeply no matter who it involved?

As one who's also lived an extraordinary life I can understand the angst. I too, would pain inside if I had no one with whom to share my experiences.

My old neighbor, Gordon "Slim" Burt was and still is part of my only personal brush with Alzheimer's. He lived in the house adjacent to my back fence and I used to see him feed the birds, squirrels... and give my dogs a bone every time he went into his back yard because they would shout at him relentlessly every time he made an appearance, knowing they had a treat forthcoming. He'd walk to his garage, get two Milkbones and make his way to the fence where Odin and Jed stood waiting. It took him forever….an old man’s labored steps. I watched this for months from my garden, never saying a word, tears in my eyes.

The following Christmas, I decided to introduce myself and made up a gift bag with peanuts for the squirrels, a box of dog biscuits, some bird seed, and some Hershey kisses.

He greeted me warmly and took me inside to introduce me to his wife.

She showed me her shoes. All of them, taking out each pair and proudly iterated how much she loved them.

I knew right then and there that she was ill. I think I was the only one at the time who saw the dimming of her mind and knew exactly what was happening.
Four months later she was in a nursing home. Slim drove there three times a day, everyday, through snow, rain, and thunderstorms to feed her breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Never once missing a meal with her until she died 2 years later.

And after that, I watched Mr. Burt begin to fade.

He’s in a nursing home now himself, unable to carry on.

I miss seeing their clock, pendulum swaying , so dependable…. through my office window into their kitchen…the house belongs to a new family now.

And not a day goes by that I don’t think of her as I tie the laces of my sneakers. And regret that I cannot remember her name.

I hope Nancy is ok.

We have long known that men are more likely to commit suicide than women, more likely to be murdered than women, that infant mortality is higher in males than females, and that the vast majority of workplace injuries and workplace deaths are suffered by men. And, of course, that men live shorter lives in general.

Now a study published by the American Psychological Society shows that the most dangerous period for being male is in the period from adolescence to early adulthood, where young men die at three times the rate of young women. Indeed, the study's authors conclude, being male is now the single largest demographic risk factor for early mortality in developed countries.

Is there anyting to be done about it? Methinks not much so long as most people neither know nor care about such disparities. But who knows? Maybe it's just supposed to be this way. Males are the expendable sex, right?

Mark is a little annoyed at what is seen as an anti-Israel message.

Well gosh Mark, picky picky. I mean, surely a sign saying 'Smash the Jewish State' has all sorts of room for interpretation. What kind of rigid ideologue rightwing Arab hater are you that you can't see that, my good man?

Hey Val?

When America intervened in Chile, despite what criticisms anyone might make, it was to stop a Marxist who was receiving money and arms from the North Koreans, from Castro, and the Soviet Union. We helped, unfortunately, put a brutal dictator in his place, because it was the only option available to us except to allow another Communist state to take hold. But we urged that dictator to curb human rights abuses and to give his system up to democratic elections, and while it took until the early 1990s, he finally did that. Chile is a democracy with free speech and free press today, which it almost certainly wouldn't have been if the Communists had taken it over.

When we intervented in Nicaragua, we took out a Communist dictator named Ortega who had crushed freedom of speech, crushed opposition press, and slaughtered thousands of political opponents and inconvenient Indian populations. Due to our intervention, Nicaragua today has free speech, free press, and free elections.

That being the case, Val, why are you even bothering to debate this cretin from Counterpunch.org? Clearly these people are either deeply uninformed or they simply enjoy acting as apologists for brutal mass-murderers who haven't allowed disssent, free expression, or free elections in over 40 years.

Don't even bother trying, Val. Just remember, always remember, the kind of totalitarian-apologist scumbags who run Counterpunch. And make note of the idiots who try to defend them.

That Truman knew how to plan, didn't he?

David Brooks has a rather depressing column in the New York Times about partisanship, in which he asserts that most people base their opinions on their political party affiliation, and not the other way around.

In short, he says that the rational voter would, every election season, have a look at the platforms and candidates of both parties, and based on that, would make a choice. Instead, most voters get their facts filtered through their partisan filters, ignore data that contradicts it, and make their judgements accordingly. Our political scientist friend Chris in Mississippi says that Brooks is oversimplifying but is basically correct.

It strikes me that, if this is really the natural, default state of the human animal, then this explains why partisans who switch parties usually think of it as a profound, shattering moment of betrayal; the feeling of "hey, those guys were lying to me!" practically pervades their thinking, at least in the first few years after switching parties.

I guess my real question is, is really the common wisdom among political scientists? That partisanship-first is how the vast majority of American voters operate? Party first, ideas second? That would certainly explain why those of us who see ourselves as outside the two-party system, as voting based first and foremost on the issues, get so frustrated at times.

Remember the Moscow Times article that claimed safety codes for launching Minuteman nuclear missles were set to all-zero? We talked about it a week or so ago and a bunch of us were skeptical.

Well, we weren't the only ones.

(Via Jerry.)

I am the challenger in this week's Iron Blog competition. I'm taking on Iron Blogger Libertarian. The subject is "victimless crimes."

You can find my first iron blog entry here. It may surprise you.

* Update * Iron Blogger Libertarian's opening statement is here.

I've had a wonderful time guest-blogging here at Dean's World. Thank you, Dean, for giving me the opportunity to interact with the thoughtful and provocative group of readers and commenters you have gathered here. You have created a prime example of the best of blogging -- a forum of discussion where respect for one another trumps ideological differences. It is quite an achievement and we who are about to comment salute you!

Thank you, also, to the commenters who have given me their insights into the ideas and questions I have brought up. I enjoy the challenge of writing for readers who are really paying attention and will not be shy about calling me on my slips, misses and hits. You are all invited to visit me at e-Claire to keep me honest and, maybe, tell me when I've hit one on the head -- and to continue the discussion . . .

As I've said many times, America is a two-party system and if you want to win political acceptance for your cause, the best possible strategy is to find supporters in both major political parties. Here's a brave lady who gets that. While she will almost certainly be pilloried as a "traitor" by some, I wish her all the luck in the world.

(Via Steven Malcolm Anderson.)

What's the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?

The taste.

While I usually have a short attention span for lengthy posts....I was glued to this one through the end.

INDC Journal attends a rally and attempts an interview with Michael Berg.
A riveting and an insightful glimpse into the mind of a man who's son was brutally murdered by a bunch of Islamic wackos.

There are Pagan Conservatives and then there are LIBERALcrunchieMommies.

"Families must continue to be the foundation of our nation. Families -- not government programs -- are the best way to make sure our children are properly nurtured, our elderly are cared for, our cultural and spiritual heritages are perpetuated, our laws are observed and our values are preserved. Thus it is imperative that our government's programs, actions, officials and social welfare institutions never be allowed to jeopardize the family. We fear the government may be powerful enough to destroy our families; we know that it is not powerful enough to replace them. The New Republican Party must be committed to working always in the interest of the American family." [unattributed quote in The Federalist e-newsletter]

If families are the foundation of our society, why the death tax? Why not allow families to build empires?

Am I mistaken, or did America used to be about the individual? It is the individual who has "certain inalienable Rights." It is the individual who can be free. What happened to valuing the individual?

I'm not knocking the family, what I'm getting at is that emphasizing "the family" seems to be just another way of erasing the value of the individual unless and until he identifies himself as belonging to a group of one sort or another. Gay-American, Afro-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, Leftie, Rightie, smoker/nonsmoker -- aargh! Speaking as a Gyno-American, I hate the whole hyphenated-American thing.

I am still not sure what the definition of "Family Values" is.

America's mythos is based upon the value of the rugged individual. Our very archetype is the Cowboy taming the West, but think of the New Englander, the Kansas Jay Hawk, the Sooners, The Texan, the Southern Gentleman -- all are individuals who, if someone were foolish enough to attempt to tell them what to do, would in their various ways tell that person to go fly a kite. [which brings to mind another individualist]

Do you see this trend? Am I missing something -- is it a good idea? What do we do with it? How do we combat it?

My friends, if you want to see what citizen journalism looks like in the blogosphere, look no further than Scott Koenig's report on Gillian Russom.

Who? Why, you'll have to read to find out.

* Update * Also, don't miss INDC Journal's Interview with Michael Berg, father of murdered American patriot Nick Berg.

Steve has an excellent debunking of the myth that Reagan hurt AIDS patients. Be sure to read the comments, where I left some further debunk-info.

Reagan had an excellent record on gay rights issues--to the extent that anyone at that level of office in that day and age could be said to have such a record, anyway, since he had publicly supported gay rights measures and, while he did ally with some conservative Christian forces, never once backed any anti-gay legislation and was always personally gay-friendly. While it's true that there were things his administration could have done better about the early AIDS crisis, this is true for just about everyone in the 1980s--gay rights activists, local and national elected officials of both parties and at all levels of government--responded poorly. If any of you saw that execrable HBO movie And The Band Played On, you should be aware that it gave a horribly politically slanted accounting, but the book it was based on, And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts, was a much fairer and more damning book. Shilts would never have approved that attrocious movie. The book is must-reading, for Shilts (who was gay, lived in San Francisco, and himself eventually died of AIDS) documents in excruciating detail how local government officials, gay rights activists, judges, and career civil servants in many cases conspired to keep the plague from being recognized and to prevent government from even getting involved. Shilts was unsparing in his indictment of everyone at all levels and in both parties, and if he was sometimes harsh on the Reagan administration, he was usually even harsher with others, including gay rights activists he personally knew and who were responsible for preventing government from taking direct action to stop the plague in its tracks.

It's great reading. And a good supplement, by the way, is David Horowitz' autobiography Radical Son, because in the last half of the book Horowitz talks about how he befriended Randy Shilts and saw himself how radical left-wing gay activists fought tooth and nail to prevent government from taking any action to stop the plague or even recognize that a plague was spreading. And how gay men who tried to act against it were often attacked as liars and traitors and sellouts to "the fundamentalists." It's powerful reading.

Oh, and by the way, there is also a consistent rumor floating around parts of the gay community that the Reagan administration wanted to put AIDS victims into concentration camps. Just so you know, that too is a myth.

It's remarkable what some people think they know that simply isn't true.

"He was dying for years and the day came and somehow it came as a blow. Not a loss but a blow. How could this be? Maybe we were all of us more loyal to him, and to the meaning of his life, than we quite meant to be. And maybe it's more. ... Ronald Reagan told the truth to a world made weary by lies. He believed truth was the only platform on which a better future could be built. He shocked the world when he called the Soviet Union 'evil,' because it was, and an 'empire,' because it was that, too. He never stopped bringing his message to the people of the world, to Europe and China and in the end the Soviet Union. And when it was over, the Berlin Wall had been turned into a million concrete souvenirs, and Soviet communism had fallen. But of course it didn't fall. It was pushed. By Mr. Know Nothing Cowboy Gunslinger Dimwit. All presidents should be so stupid. ... What an era his was. What a life he lived. He changed history for the better and was modest about it. He didn't bray about his accomplishments but saw them as the work of the American people. He did not see himself as entitled, never demanded respect, preferred talking to hotel doormen rather than State Department functionaries because he thought the doormen brighter and more interesting. When I pressed him once, a few years out of the presidency, to say what he thought the meaning of his presidency was, he answered, reluctantly, that it might be fairly said that he 'advanced the boundaries of freedom in a world more at peace with itself.' And so he did. And what could be bigger than that?"
Peggy Noonan

There has been another "statement" on the same Islamist web site that carried the N1ck B3rg video purporting to be from "al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula." The warning seems to be focused on that area. It calls Westerners "crusaders" [the phrase "move on" having no equivalent in Arabic] and warns all Muslims who are "affiliated with these crusaders" away from compounds, bases and means of transport, especially Western and American airliners which will be "direct targets of our next operations."

The stated purpose of this warning is to spare "our Muslim brothers' blood."

"We act only to protect them, their religion, honor and life," the statement says.

..."We renew our warning to all security personnel, guards of crusader compounds and American bases, and all those that have stood by America and its allies ... We ask them to return to the right path, to separate themselves from non-believers, to become their enemies and to fight holy war against them by money, word and weapon."

"This enemy," the statement goes on to say, "must be fought. There is no other way but to fight it and eradicate it."

A very clear statement of their perception of the battle lines, eh?

Still looking for a translation of the full text.

"For America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. "
Ronald Reagan

Do you feel that way?

New York Times
June 3, 2004
A Star Athlete, A Soldier, And A Challenge
By Ira Berkow
WASHINGTON, June 2 — The phone rang on May 25 at precisely five minutes to noon Chicago time .
"I want you to be strong," Willie Byrd recalled hearing from his wife, Specialist Danielle Green, in Baghdad with the 571st Military Police Company.

"What's wrong?" he said. "I know something's wrong."
"I'm all right," she said, "but I lost my left hand."
The following day, The New York Times and other newspapers published a dramatic photograph of an unidentified female soldier being transported on the hood of a Humvee to a hospital after being wounded. She was flanked by nervous American soldiers, their weapons pointed warily.

Specialist Green was that wounded soldier. She had been a standout for the University of Notre Dame basketball team in the late 1990's. Her nickname there was D. Smooth, for the graceful way she used her solid 5-foot-7 body on the court. After college she became Mr. Byrd's assistant coach at Washington High School in Chicago for two years.

They married two months ago, about a year and a half after she enlisted, when she returned to the United States for three weeks, he said. Then she was shipped back to her unit, and her job as a gunner for the commanding officer.

Mr. Byrd is 58, a retired girls high school basketball coach. She is 27. Some people said it would not work.
"Actually, I was shocked," said Ericka Haney, a teammate of Specialist Green's at Notre Dame who has remained her friend. "He was a lot older than her. She said: `We have a lot in common. And he treats me nice.' "

Mr. Byrd and Specialist Green thought it was a match made in heaven.
"Nothing's changed — on that score," he said.
But something has changed, of course.
It was intensely hot when she went up on the roof of the Sadoon Police Station the afternoon of May 25 in Baghdad, Specialist Green recalled Wednesday from her hospital bed on the fifth floor of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Her left arm, which now ends just below the elbow, was swathed in bandages from surgery the day before for the insertion of a plate. It was her sixth operation, she estimated, since being wounded.

She had a more vivid memory of the attack: "I didn't like being alone, but I thought I'd let some of the others cool down below, and then they'd relieve me. It was like I was a sitting duck. But that's the way it is a lot of the time over there. You want to trust the Iraqis — some are such nice people — but you know you'd better not, even the children. You just never know. And they just don't want us there."

"We have so much time in which we do nothing," Specialist Green said, "and you stand outside, or, for me, sometimes sitting in the turret of a tank with your head exposed, and you're just waiting for something bad to happen."

Then she heard a burst of fire. Then there was a second blast, and a rocket from a homemade missile launcher in an apartment building next to the police station hit a water tank on the roof where she was standing guard. The explosion ripped into her.

She screamed in pain. Her left arm had been hit and shrapnel tore at her left leg and her face.
Within minutes, soldiers from her unit were up on the roof and covering her. She was quickly taken down to the Humvee. She never lost consciousness.

"This is all part of war," she said, "and you have to be brave. Good people get hurt. I was one of those people. I knew I was taking a risk in joining the Army. I felt certain I'd be sent to Iraq. It's hard to imagine it's going to be you."

When she got to the hospital, Specialist Green said, she asked her sergeant, "Is my hand gone?"
"Yes," said the sergeant, whose last name, Harrelson, was all she could recall.
"And then I broke down," she said. "And I didn't cry again until yesterday, when Sergeant Pearce called and asked how I was doing. He was one of those who got me off the roof and onto the vehicle."

She thinks it was Sergeant Pearce who had recovered her wedding ring, which had been found on her left hand on the roof. Specialist Green, who was left-handed, was flown first to a hospital in Germany, then to Walter Reed on Saturday. Her husband was flown by the military from Chicago to Washington to be with her.

Specialist Green seemed stoic, if not even accepting, of her disability. The scars on her left cheek will diminish, she said, and her leg wounds are healing.

"And I'm already learning to write with my right hand," she said. "It's not so pretty, but it'll get better. And worse things could have happened. It's happened to others over there. I'm just happy to be alive."

Mr. Byrd said: "I've never known anyone like her, so strong-willed. You know, I had no intention of marrying anybody. And she told me: `You need a good wife. I'm going to make you my husband, and make you happy.' And she did, and she has."

Why did she enlist?
"That's a good question," Mr. Byrd said. "When I heard she was going to do it — we weren't married then and were just dating — I said, `Don't do it.' "

Specialist Green said she was inspired not by patriotism, but by the honor and pride of being a uniformed American soldier.

"I decided that I was getting along in years and if I didn't join the military now, I wouldn't get another chance," she said. "I grew up very poor on the South and West Sides of Chicago," she added. "And my father wasn't around at all, and my mother got messed up with drugs. And I remember as a small child loving G.I. Joe. I thought, `Oh, man, that's cool.' "

Specialist Green said she had grown up with an aunt, who also became a drug addict, then lived with her grandmother. There was, she said, "a lot of chaos" in her early life, and perhaps the military way seemed to offer order.

"In high school, I joined the R.O.T.C., and by my senior year I was a lieutenant colonel," Specialist Green said. "I loved it." She decided that if she did not get a college scholarship — she dreamed of going to Notre Dame — she would join the Army.

"I thought I could develop greater discipline and organization if I did," she said.
Specialist Green became an all-state high school basketball player, her husband said, and received a scholarship to Notre Dame. Playing guard, she had career averages of 9.5 points and 4.5 rebounds and was Notre Dame's third-leading scorer in her final two seasons.

Specialist Green said she had been disappointed in her tour of duty in Iraq.
"I thought we were going for humanitarian reasons, like building things up and cleaning the neighborhoods up — it's filthy over there," she said. "But we hardly did any of it. We spent a lot of time just doing nothing."

"Looking back, I personally don't think we should have gone into Iraq," she added. "Not the way things have turned out. A lot more people are going to get hurt, and for what?"

As for her future, Specialist Green said she might go to graduate school. She was a psychology major in college, and said she might even teach R.O.T.C. or coach basketball. "There are opportunities out there for me," she said.

She hopes to have a child. "When she called me to tell me she'd been wounded, she said, `It's only my left hand that's gone,' " Mr. Byrd said. " `I'm O.K. otherwise, and we can still have a Little Smoothie.' She wants a boy."

Specialist Green, her dark hair spread on her white pillow, smiled.
"And if it's a girl, that'll be fine," she said. "We'll call her Little Smoothie, too."

Many of you may not know about my special esteem for soldiers...but it is great and personal. And I am sometimes called upon for a mission.
I got the call out the other day for SPC Danielle L. Green...a request to put the word out and get some well wishes sent her way. I hope that Dean doesn't mind me using this forum to help do so. For anyone interested, you can contact me personally for the address... SondraK *at* SondraK.com.
It means the world to our brave men and women in the service of our country to know that we support them. And a small gesture goes a big way. I know this first hand and from experience. And it is my mission.
37 cents will reap you untold rewards.

I am pondering if Dean realized that me and Claire are coasty girls and in a whole different time World...
and me waking up with "for deposit only" stamped on my forehead isn't helping.

The latest Carnival of the Capitalists is now available.

Gallup has an interesting article up comparing Reagan's historical approval ratings, which (like all Presidents) tended to go up and down over time, with his approval ratings after leaving office, which have consistently gone up since then, and now show him to have been one of the most popular Presidents in history, with those viewing him negatively a quite small and shrinking minority.

Makes sense to me. I despised him when he was President myself, but now I view him as in the same league as either of the Roosevelts in terms of importance, influence, and effectiveness. Although hardly perfect. But then, no one who's ever held that office was perfect.